Among data scientists and analysts, R has long held its own against Python in the battle to determine the “best” analytical programming language. Statisticians and numerically-savvy academics of all stripes have typically preferred R to Python, so lots of R&D—both inside the ivory tower and in various industries— gets done in R.

Part of R’s popularity comes from its dizzying array of packages, contributed by a lively community of developers. As of January 2017, there were 10,000 R packages available for download, a milestone that testifies to its wide-spread adoption across lots of different industries.

Whether you’re new to the R for data science community, or you’re already an active package-creator or analyst, listening in on conversations among influencers is great way to stay up to speed and find the most relevant news about R for data science.

On the heels of releasing support for R in Mode’s integrated Notebooks, we’ve compiled a list of the people we follow most closely in the R data science community. If you want to stay in the know, here are 7 people you should follow on Twitter.

Are there R data science influencers you think we should add to this list? We’d love to hear who you follow! Tweet at us @ModeAnalytics. Or, reach out on the Mode forum, where you can talk to other analysts and data scientists and compare notes.